THE

PHILOSOPHY OF SPIRITS

IN

RELATION TO MATTER.

CHAPTER I.

(INTRODUCTORY.)

THE RESPECTIVE CLAIMS OF NATURAL AND REVEALED PHILOSOPHY UPON OUR BELIEF.

In attempting to write a work, or to propound a theory, in which philosophy and revelation are mutually enlisted and appealed to for evidence to elucidate one of the most mysterious, difficult, and practically important subjects that can engage the human mind, as it stands related to the physical and moral government of the world, it may be thought necessary, and indeed indispensable, that in the first place something by way of argument should be brought forward in support of the just merits which these two great sources of all knowledge demand at our hands.

B

And while I find myself totally unable to advance in the discovery of this important inquiry without the cooperation of both kinds of evidence supplied to me from these two very different and distinct sources, I do not find that either philosophy or revelation demand an unreasonable or an unconditional belief in the truths they each of them propound; but, on the contrary, I am, in appealing to them, compelled to admire the noble and indisputable proofs,-the clear and tested evidence they mutually afford, in their own intrinsic way, of the power, the attributes, and the works of the one great, universal, and benevolent Creator.

If philosophy makes, therefore, any demand upon our belief, it is only on account of the very high and complete order of evidence we have received of its truthfulness and stability,-an evidence that forces us to rely on its statements, when we are enabled to be assured these rest not upon mere inference, or analogy, or unsupportable rules, but upon a true and scientific method of induction, which, like the centre of attraction, makes many facts to converge and bear upon one point; or upon true syllogistical reasoning, where the premises bear a just and logical relation to the conclusion.

Yet philosophy alone, however nearly it may approach to truth, dependent as it is on the progressive attainments of the human mind in the advancement of learning and inductive science, is at all times exposed to the disadvantages, in contemplating subjects so exalted, which must necessarily result from a capacity

limited to the consideration of those that alone can be assigned to it more equitably.

And it must not be forgotten, that upon many most important points relating to the physical as well as to the moral condition and position of man upon this earth, as he stands related, not only to the Creator, but to the different matters and bodies that surround him, philosophy is almost wholly silent, possessing little or no power or means to unfold them; so that we are called upon to be most scrupulously correct and vigilant, before we receive and acknowledge as axioms of science such statements as we know to be beyond the boundary of human learning or natural philosophy to determine. Such are those statements that would attempt to explain the abstract nature of causes; for natural and mental philosophy can only treat of or expound those causes, termed efficient causes-or, to speak more comprehensibly, created causes-as they stand related to, or are made manifest by, created matters.

On the other hand, the claims which revelation makes upon our belief are of the very highest order, demanding assent upon grounds, not only equally secure and extended with those of true philosophy, but also more diverse and incontestable in character. For here we have statements, not put forth upon the assertions of mere tradition, or of testimony,-not resting upon any one or two proofs, but on such as are based upon its own internal and inherent evidence, and drawn from the most accurate fulfilment of the prophecies it contains.

Moreover, we have incontestable proof that our Saviour literally quoted it; and, finally, we possess the most incontrovertible of all proofs of its integrity-viz., the fact of its containing so many thousand statements of things, persons, and events, not one of which has ever been disproved.

With gratitude and thankfulness to God, the Christian philosopher is therefore called upon to repose his hope and belief in revelation upon every diversity of proof which it is possible to bring before the human mind. For it is truly incompatible with the love and mercy of a Being infinite in wisdom towards that creature upon whom more especially he has bestowed the noblest and highest privileges, to suppose that, having revealed to him his great power and transcendent love, which we could learn by no other means, he should suffer that revelation to rest upon a single kind of evidence, and that an imperfect one. This can never be received in extenuation when the sceptic and the infidel stand before the Ancient of Days to receive that punishment for their unbelief in a revelation so unmistakeably attested. For the ground on which revelation stands is of that broad and immovable character, that the appeal she makes upon all for credit in her statements is most powerful; and he who attempts to erect the elaborate superstructure of natural philosophy upon a foundation that takes reason alone for its base, can receive no harder rebuke than that which his own favourite authority must convey, when it tells him it is inconsistent with revelation.

And if this Word of God is so pure and unadulterated that the holy psalmist compared it to "silver seven times purified and refined," it must surely be a higher test of truth than the mere unassisted wisdom of man.

And here I would add, there can be no more powerful argument brought down to the level of man's reasoning, in proof, not only of the truth, but also of the necessity and use of revelation, than that which is implied in the fact, that to contemplate such a revelation as simply conveying the mere testimony of events which occurred in the world at former periods of its history, or its existence, and not also as the message of statements which could never have been discovered by man simply through the instrumentality of his own faculties, implies, on the part of the Divine Author of our existence, an act of supererogation we should hardly suppose an intelligent created being could be capable of committing.

To those, therefore, who are unprepared to answer this question put to them by doubting philosophersviz. Why was revelation given to man ?—I here state it is essential that the Scriptures should have been revealed to us, because without them we could never, by any faculties or powers of our own, have been put in possession of facts there so confidently and so irrefragably made known to us.

It sets out with disclosing to us events which could never have been known in any other way, and which, at the same time, we can never disprove; and in this position it stands boldly out, in its own strength, an unrefuted history of the unscarchable wisdom of God